Long or Short Capital

From the article we used as a source last week in our atricle about Google’s (NYSE: GOOG) information technology side, there was a Perf sighting:

Performance reviews are handled in a similarly technocratic way. Google’s “Perf” system lets managers write e-mails–again read by a computer before any human–describing what a worker did on a project that was good or bad. Come review time, peers get an e-mail asking to compare the employee to other Google people. Perf breaks up the answers, measures who’s being compared with whom, and–get this–makes the answers public. The way Merrill figures it, techies like open-air back patting. Presumably, the process airs some dirty laundry, too, but Merrill says that would happen anyway. “We have to protect our culture as we’re growing fast,” he says. “That’s what keeps us up nights.

(Source: InformationWeek.com)

Some people will happily jump on the next big thing, give it all they’ve got, and in this way make important contributions to fast-moving fields. Others just don’t have the temperament to do this. Some people need to think through everything very carefully, and this takes time, as they get easily confused. It’s not hard to feel superior to such people, until you remember that Einstein was one of them. In my experience, the truly shocking new ideas and innovations tend to come from such people.

From The Trouble with Physics by Lee Smolin.

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Great comment by marcel_marceau outlining the power of “Do you play this one?” on our Strategic Craps post:

The “Do you play this one” option is a classic demonstration of the teachings of Sun Tzu. By allowing the choice of whether or not to engage in battle, given a known dispursment of terrain and resource, one may regenerate situations until the circumstance is advantagious for victory.

Unless of course you choose wrong and a 7 way ass kicking ensues, ending with your hurling of mouse, docking station and Thinkpad across the neighbouring cube farm and the subsequent requisition of a wireless mouse to avoid the negative budgetary impacts of a repeat performance.

This is true and we refer you to more of Sun Tzu’s work on terrain selection which is highly applicable to Strategic Craps*.

The natural formation of the country is the soldier’s best ally; but a power of estimating the adversary, of controlling the forces of victory, and of shrewdly calculating difficulties, dangers and distances, constitutes the test of a great general.

*We are attempting an act of Wikiality, wherein if we say that something is not true, is true, it becomes true, because we, and other likeminded distorters of reality, have said it’s true enough. Hence, wikiality.

Forget the whole pretexting, spying on other HPQ board members and related nonsense. Can you imagine working with a woman like this?

Perkins, the venture capitalist, thought in broad strategic strokes, preferring to leave the details to others. Dunn thought the core of her job was to dot the I’s and cross the T’s–to keep her board process-driven rather than personality-driven. It drove Perkins nuts. It kept making him think of that helicopter. He recalls a meeting in his office with her in which he wanted to discuss how to compete better with Dell, IBM and others. According to Perkins, she was fixated instead on her discovery that there were inconsistencies between HP’s bylaws and the Corporate Directors Handbook. Those inconsistencies then occupied hours of discussion at subsequent board meetings. “Intel might be kicking the crap out of us,” Perkins says, “but that didn’t seem to matter.”

We rebranded Dice Wars as Strategic Craps and released it directly to you, available on our website, for eternity. Gratis. Ignore the title, we rebranded it, we assure you. A permalink to the game will reside in the top left of our site.

Game created by Game Design.

Executives and companies love to obfuscate (see related research Translating Corporate Speak: Auto OEM’s and Translating Corporate Speak: MOVI & BBI). Since it’s hard to understand the real meaning of their statements, we have provided a handy translation. Here are the words of the Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) Board of Directors run through our propietary translation algorithm.

Corporate speak:

HP used an unidentified private investigator, who in turn hired a contractor who used pretexting to obtain directors’ and reporters’ phone records.

Translation:
-HP’s Board hired a 3rd party to “pretext” a fellow Board member and reporters to whom they believed he was speaking. And by “pretext” they meant falsely impersonate. The 3rd party was hired to offload risk.
-The 3rd party firm, which was hired to falsely impersonate a Board member and reporters, wisely hired a 3rd party to perform this illegal task. This 3rd party (6th party?) was hired to offload risk.

Corporate speak:

[Patricia Dunn, Chairman of HP’s Board] said she only found out Wednesday night that investigators hired by HP had also used pretexting to gain access to reporters’ phone records.

Translation:
She only meant to illegally access the accounts of her fellow Board member and never intended to anger reporters for large, national newspapers who could end up forcing her resignation.

Corporate speak:

HP said a board committee investigating the matter was ‘advised by the committee’s outside counsel that the use of pretexting at the time of the investigation was not generally unlawful (except with respect to financial institutions), but such counsel could not confirm that the techniques’ of outside investigators ‘complied in all respects with applicable law.’

Translation:
Damn, that was definitely illegal. Let’s start blaming outside counsel.

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

-Will Rogers

Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing

Scientists have been stellar performers over the past few decades as a pureplay on the empiricism trend. While we believe this theme has yet to play out fully, Scientists have overshot their long-term normalized earnings and have balance sheets overloaded with Sanctimonious. The downgrading of Pluto by the Scientists [note that we still rate Pluto at Sector Perform] reflects their overly self-important view of the world. Thousands (Millions? (billions?)) of years after the formation of the universe, to us, seems fairly late in the game to be changing the definition of planethood. In our view, Pluto has achieved permanent planet status.

Scientists now define a planet as “a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.”

We define a planet as “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and — most of all — Pluto.”

Recommendation: In the next lunar cycle, look for a convergence between Scientists’ reputations and Pluto’s currently battered status in the solar system. Also Scorpios, with Mars at its apex, you are all gonna get laid.

Imitation is suicide.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing

I have qualms with the lack of qualms people are exhibiting everywhere. Compare the number of times you have heard your friends use the phrase “I have no qualms with that” and the instances in which they told you about the qualms they were having with someone.

Similarly, I have never heard someone claim to be combobulated. And yet, everywhere I turn people are feigning discombobulation.

Recommendation: Long “qualms” and short “no qualms”. After a cyclical period of society having “no qualms” a covergence to qualm/no qualm balance seems likely. Likewise the spread between discombobulation and combobulation is likely to diminish.

Everyone knows the dangers of 2nd hand smoke. In fact, smoking bans have gone into effect across the nation in restaurants, bars, within 5 ft of office buildings, and inside my old lady’s house. And I constantly hear whiny-type people complaining to smokers that they are suffering due to 2nd hand smoke. I am now fed up with this behavior. These worry-warts have never apologized to me for making me breath their filthy 3rd hand smoke. And yet wherever I go, I find myself inadvertantly inhaling the smoke that has been exhaled by 2nd hand smokers*.

*before you make the obvious, sarcastic comment you should know that I have had carbon filters installed in my throat. I would never subject anyone to 4th hand smoke.

Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.

-Mike Shea

Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing

Following the release of Long or Short Capital’s Fourth Quarter financial performance, the firm is issuing a a $0.34 dividend per a subscriberholder as of 7/31/2006. To qualify, all you need to be is a subscriber, either by XML or E-mail, as of 7/31/2006.

For more information on how to collect your cash or cash equivalent dividend, please refer to our Dividend Policy. Given our float of 282 subscriberstakes (as of 7/31/2006), a 5% growth assumption and our 1st annual total of $3.44 worth of dividends per subscriber, our current capitalization is $32,336 using a dividend discount model.

The behavior of termites, together with ants and bees, is a precursor to trust because they have an extraordinary ability to form relationships and sophisticated social structures based on mutual altruism even though individually they are fundamentally dumb. Money itself is a derivative of trust. If we can figure out how termites come together, then we may be able to better understand the underlying principles of market behavior — and make big money.

-Jeffrey Epstein, money manager/alleged sex criminal

Past Quotes Entirely Relevant to Investing